Wish Bound (A Grimm Agency Novel Book 3) by J. C. Nelson Read Free Book Online

go onward with Death, or face true oblivion.”
    I had a feeling I knew her demand now, which implied that something else Death told me was also true. “Can you raise the dead?”
    Grimm always told me that he wouldn’t raise souls, never couldn’t. For the longest time, I thought it was to make him appear more powerful. “Yes, if the soul is still available. Creating flesh is easy, those bodies humans wear are little more than primitive, chemical machines. Without a spirit to guide it, the flesh is empty.”
    “And she wants you to raise someone from the dead. Someone dead more than thirty days.” The pieces fell into place now.
    Grimm nodded, his eyes downcast. “Someone dead more than four hundred years, Marissa. And since you will ask, she wants me to resurrect Rouge Faron. Her mother. My wife.”
    According to the history books, Grimm once allowed a princess to work for him as his agent. He considered it similar to keeping a pet lizard, except that this lizard talked and wore pink dresses and so on. After seven years of service, he granted her a wish.
    “I wish you loved me” was never on the list of things he expected, but Grimm followed through, seeing it as an opportunity to learn more about these ridiculous humans. Together, they had a daughter, Isolde. Princess of Roses, according to the doorman. Later, Queen of Thorns.
    On my right arm, the golden bracelet I wore fused into a seamless band, as tight as the manacle on my other arm. I shook it and pulled uselessly. “What are you doing?” When I first worked for Grimm, the bracelet had been our link. Fear of once more being Grimm’s slave swept me, making me shake.
    “You are bound to my daughter as her handmaiden. Now you are bound to me as well. It will prevent her from making more—drastic—changes to you. It will also give you respite, as for at least some of each day, you
must
be available to my commands, and I would command you to rest.”
    “Take it off.” I yanked at the bracelet, pulling until it cut my skin.
    “I will not. As her handmaiden, you would be subject to her spells, her changes, her desires. She would mold you in her own image. As long as I maintain a grasp on you, neither of us has complete control. You are, to the best of my knowledge, the only being ever bound to two fairies at once.”
    “All I ever wanted to do was be free.” I stumbled backwards, holding on to Liam while I pulled at the golden manacle.
    Grimm spoke softly. “That bond between us is your life preserver in a sea of magic, not an anchor meant to drown you. In this matter, I must insist that you trust me. Will you agree to it?”
    The logical part of my brain knew the alternative was worse. My heart, on the other hand, didn’t care about alternatives. It cared about
now
. I swallowed the fear inside me and forced myself to open my eyes as I nodded. “Only until—”
    “Absolutely, Marissa.” Grimm’s power surged out, connecting to me in a way that I could only feel.
    I shrugged it off like a mosquito bite, turning fear to anger, and anger into determination. “I’m not going to serve her. Don’t you have anything you could kill her with? Bullets? Bones? Some blessed sword?”
    Liam swept his tail around me, pinning me against him.
    Grimm flashed to a bottle on the table so he could look me in the eye. “You are her handmaiden. A handmaiden’s fate is tied to her queen. What the queen experiences, her handmaiden bears as well. Without a doubt, this is why she chose you to begin with.”
    For nearly ten years, I’d lived with realities so strange they made weird seem normal. Always facing the truth, always taking things as they were. Now I wanted, more than anything else, to hide away and pretend this wasn’t happening.
    Between being used as a repo man by the Adversary and as a human shield by the Evil Queen of Evil Queens, I’d nearly reached a breaking point. But the key to not breaking was to bend. I’d done the whole “bound to a fairy”